Posts Tagged ‘femen’

It seems that most modern men claim to be supporters of gender equality and women’s rights. Everyone supports equal treatment, equal pay and women’s right to make their own choices. Apparently it may seem that everything is all right. Some people might say patriarchy is a history as we have women in politics, business and in every other area of ​​life. Of course I refer to the Western world as it looks different in other places such as Saudi Arabia. Obviously in Western countries there are also examples of open discrimination as many men (who also happen to be bosses or politicians) aren’t able to accept women’s choices (e.g. I wasn’t born to cook for you and give you a blowjob every morning). However, I don’t want to focus on men (or women) who are openly chauvinist. We all know that there is still much to be done to provide better living conditions for women. Rather, I’d like to raise the issue of women’s sexuality which causes different reactions among people who support women’s rights in general.

Sexuality is a problem
When it comes to sexuality people react differently. We are talking about cases where women use their rights to use their sexuality. For example female animal rights activists. They strip down for the cause as vGirls do and suddenly they become problematic. Their opponents argue that the exposure of their bodies leads to the objectification of women. Well, honestly, yes, some people looking at nude pics (or half-nude) of women are building a belief that a woman is only a sexual object. However, it is worth to ask a question: who’s problematic here? The model who exposed her body or a person who seeing the naked body draws wrong conclusions? A short skirt is not an excuse for rape. And an exposure of female nudity doesn’t justify the objectification. The interesting thing here is that when we deal with vGuys the problem disappears. The same people can look at the naked torsos of handsome men and no one says those men build a bad image of all men. So it’s cool to expose your body if you’re a man but it’s not cool when you’re a woman? Similar accusations are directed towards the Femen activists who raise awareness about women’s issues using bare breasts. They are either ignored by society or accused of promoting sexism. In reality they managed to bring issues such as human trafficking, sex industry and violence towards women to main stream media.

A similar mechanism applies to sex. There’s a dominating view (even in liberal environments) in which a man has the right to sexual freedom. He can have a few sexual partners at same time and that’s okay. But if a woman wants to enjoy her freedom she suddenly turns out to be a whore.

Hidden Patriarchy

It’s actually quite funny that some men try to teach women what patriarchy is. It’s funny when some people say Yes you can but you can’t. I call it a hidden patriarchy as I believe that the term ‘freedom’ includes sexual freedom as well. This may have its source in patriarchal past in which female sexuality was designed to pleasing men, and was reserved for them. Women’s sexual freedom may thus result in anger as it means lack of control over the sphere that was controlled by men. Just as the men had decided about the finances a few decades ago, some men want to decide how women can use their sexuality, what’s appropriate and what’s not. Who’s a whore and who’s not.

Of course, hiding behind the label “I do not want the objectification of women” is very convenient. But at the end of the day it’s not logical. Getting naked doesn’t harm anyone. Having a sex with many partners doesn’t harm anyone either (if it’s consensual sex). There’s no objectification unless someone seeing a sexy female objectify her. In this case, as mentioned above, that someone has a problem with his views. The problem is not a model who used her body to raise some awareness. When you see a photo with a guy watching rugby and holding a bottle of Budweiser you don’t say “Hey, that’s because of you chicks think I’m a primitive alcoholic!!”. But you should if you want to be consistent as it’s also a gender stereotype.

The other thing is the fact that sexism is present everywhere. The market is trying to use women’s bodies to attract consumers to make more money. And if you put a half-naked blonde on the billboard it’s more likely that some guy will pay attention to it. That’s true, that’s sexist. But after all, if the girls want to strip we (as a society) can’t reject the right to decide for themselves because a bunch of capitalists make sexist ads. If no one is hurt and everything is done voluntarily, well it’s called freedom. Freedom doesn’t mean smart decisions, it doesn’t mean being perfect. It means we can decide for ourselves even if others won’t like our decisions. And if a man tells a woman that she can’t expose her sexuality because it’s inappropriate, well whatever you call it, it’s a part of patriarchy. It fits perfectly to a male-oriented world where women take a passive role in terms of sexuality.

Sexual freedom provides an equality that men enjoy from many years. It means women don’t need to satisfy anyone if they don’t want to, but if they do want it won’t make them sluts. Sexual freedom means they don’t need to play a good girl because that’s what a male-oriented society expects from them. It means they stop being a product as they can actually say both YES and NO. As long as they don’t harm anyone it’s their business what they do. Finally, women are not anyone’s property so why they should feel bad because they do what they want to do?